There are many reasons to take part in the EURIAC project final conference, which presents its results

Find out more about mobilities and internationalisation by reading some of the interviews with participants at the final conference of EURIAC. The final conference of the EURIAC project took place the 19th of September, 2013 in Kungsbacka, Sweden.

Carmen Borgendahl helps Wim Appels on the stage.

Wim Appels, Markiezaat College, travelled from the Netherlands to find out more about how the EURIAC project worked with learning outcomes. He is involved in a transfer of innovation project called Top most and they are half through the project.

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We are working in the same way, so why not use what EURIAC already has developed? We are now working with our learning outcomes, but I am interested in all of the results achieved in EURIAC.

Wim Appels is also the vice chairman for a European network called InnMain. The aim of the network is to exchange students, teachers and knowledge within the maintenance sector. Within the network they have ongoing EU-projects and they are interested in having more partners. During the conference he took the chance to inform the audience about the InnMain network.

Friedrich Arera hopes his organisation can join the next EURIAC-project.

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We need experience in organising mobitilities, beacause we haven’t done that before, says Friedrich Arera from Germany. I would like our students at the Dr. Reinold Hagen Stiftung to get more international experience.

Stefan Eliasson, Elof Lindälvs gymnasium, plans with Tristan Reilly, ANFA, to show him the car workshops during lunchtime.

Tristan Reilly, France, represents ANFA which was a partner organisation in a former project using ECVET - the European Class in Trucks Maintenance (ECT). Elof Lindälvs gymnasium was also involved as VET partner in the ECT project.

Tristan Reilly wants to know how the EURIAC project did transfer the ECT project to EURIAC; i.e. in what ways EURIAC built on the concept of the ECT project to make a new project.

Besides, he was keen to understand how EURIAC has used ECVET.

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We have been involved in mobility for 20 years now. Mobility is a good means for the development of apprentices and learners involved in vocational education and training programmes, Tristan Reilly says.

Patrik Lindgren, manager of the project department at Optima, travelled with two colleagues from Finland.

Headmaster Max Gripenberg, Optima, has been interested in opening up vocational training to European collaboration for a long time.

Patrik Lindgren and Max Gripenberg work at Optima, Finland, one of the VET partner schools in the EURIAC project. The aim of the day was to get a conclusion of what has happened in the EURIAC project.

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It is a big meeting, with many views on the complexity of the challenges of today's vocational education and training, says Patrik Lindgren. We have had interesting mingle chats and coffee discussions.

For us it is interesting to see if we back home can broaden this way of working and the acquired experience to more sectors.

We need this kind of projects, and we really hope that the training sector and EU follow, says Kim Holm, Festo Didactic.

Festo Didactic works with technical education Learning Systems and they have 30 000 Training course participants every year. They find workforce mobility very important.

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It is of great value to increase the transparency of vocational education and training in order for us to be able to compare educations in different countries and also for the participants to become mobile. We want to be able to offer the same education in China as well as in Germany, says Kim Holm from Festo Didactic, Germany.

In China Festo has together with six other companies established a vocational training which aims to meet the same standards as in EU. They are trying to standardize education.

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Our staff is global and when we run an internal training for our staff it must suit everybody. And we have 15 000 employees!

If you want to check out the ECVET process in Sweden, you need to go to Kungsbacka, says Christina Jansson and Bengt Landfeldt from the Swedish Council for Higher Education. Carin Johansson, Communicator EURIAC and Tristan Reilly, ANFA, are listening.

The Swedish Council for Higher Education also attended the conference. Christina Jansson explains that this is the first ECVET project in Sweden that has come this far, so they are very interested in knowing more about the results of the project.

Christina Jansson

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We are following the project closely to see how it works, she says. We have promoted EURIAC as a good example in many contexts. It is important that there are people who see ECVET as a possibility.

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That is why a conference like this is so important, continues Bengt Landfeldt, the Swedish Council for Higher Education. It is a possibility to get international contacts with presumable partners who are also interested in ECVET. There are no key answers in this field, so the ongoing process is important.